NewEnergyNews: JAPAN GETTING INTO ALGAE/

NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

The challenge now: To make every day Earth Day.

YESTERDAY

THINGS-TO-THINK-ABOUT WEDNESDAY, August 23:

  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And The New Energy Boom
  • TTTA Wednesday-ORIGINAL REPORTING: The IRA And the EV Revolution
  • THE DAY BEFORE

  • Weekend Video: Coming Ocean Current Collapse Could Up Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Impacts Of The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current Collapse
  • Weekend Video: More Facts On The AMOC
  • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 15-16:

  • Weekend Video: The Truth About China And The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: Florida Insurance At The Climate Crisis Storm’s Eye
  • Weekend Video: The 9-1-1 On Rooftop Solar
  • THE DAY BEFORE THAT

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 8-9:

  • Weekend Video: Bill Nye Science Guy On The Climate Crisis
  • Weekend Video: The Changes Causing The Crisis
  • Weekend Video: A “Massive Global Solar Boom” Now
  • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, July 1-2:

  • The Global New Energy Boom Accelerates
  • Ukraine Faces The Climate Crisis While Fighting To Survive
  • Texas Heat And Politics Of Denial
  • --------------------------

    --------------------------

    Founding Editor Herman K. Trabish

    --------------------------

    --------------------------

    WEEKEND VIDEOS, June 17-18

  • Fixing The Power System
  • The Energy Storage Solution
  • New Energy Equity With Community Solar
  • Weekend Video: The Way Wind Can Help Win Wars
  • Weekend Video: New Support For Hydropower
  • Some details about NewEnergyNews and the man behind the curtain: Herman K. Trabish, Agua Dulce, CA., Doctor with my hands, Writer with my head, Student of New Energy and Human Experience with my heart

    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

    -------------------

    -------------------

      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

    -------------------

    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

  • ---------------
  • WEEKEND VIDEOS, August 24-26:
  • Happy One-Year Birthday, Inflation Reduction Act
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 1
  • The Virtual Power Plant Boom, Part 2

    Sunday, April 25, 2010

    JAPAN GETTING INTO ALGAE

    Scientists Plan Algae ‘Alchemy’ to Turn Paddies Into Oil Fields
    Shigeru Sato and Yuji Okada (w/Stuart Biggs, Alex Devine, Reed Landberg), April 19, 2010 (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

    "As Japan’s rice fields turn fallow and its farming communities decline, a new army of workers is preparing to make the countryside fertile again. This time the crop is motor fuel and the laborers are microscopic algae.

    "At least 75 developers globally are studying algae, which has the potential to generate more energy per hectare than any other crop used for making fuel…The technology has attracted the U.S. Department of Energy and big oil including Exxon Mobil Corp., which plans to spend as much as $600 million on research over five years."


    click to enlarge

    "Japan abandoned a $132 million algae project in the 1990s, when oil prices dropped below $10 a barrel and climate change took a back seat to reviving the economy in what became known as “the Lost Decade.” Now companies including Toyota Motor Corp. and refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co. may join a study into the microorganisms that can turn waste water into oil, scrub carbon dioxide out of the air and reduce dependence on fossil fuels…

    "Microalgae use sunlight, water and carbon to produce oxygen and biofuel through photosynthesis. The plants, which look like a green film on the surface of water, can be cultivated on marginal land in open ponds or in “photobioreactors,” incubators that protect it from contamination and maintain a steady temperature for more intensive production…Emissions from factories and power plants can be pumped into the reactors…"


    click to enlarge

    "Algae are more productive than crops because they keep making fuel regardless of the weather…All the transport fuel needs of the U.S. could in theory be met by algae cultivated in an area the size of Belgium…Algae is among “second-generation” biofuels, designed to overcome the disadvantages of fuels from food grains…Riots broke out in cities from Cairo to Jakarta in 2008 after food prices soared…Researchers are now pursuing agricultural waste, fungus and other fuel sources that don’t compete with food crops.

    "The Botryococcus algae being studied by Tsukuba University produces fuel that’s almost identical to diesel…Costs [would be] about 800 yen a liter, compared with gasoline, which retails for about 130 yen in Tokyo…[Researchers say they] can reduce costs sufficiently by 2022 to compete with ordinary oil products…Japan could supply enough algae biofuel to replace all the oil products currently used to supply the country’s transport, power plants and heating if photobioreactors were installed on the country’s unused farmland…The Cabinet approved a climate bill last month that calls for the expansion of renewable energy more than three-fold to supply 10 percent of Japan’s energy needs by 2020…"

    0 Comments:

    Post a Comment

    << Home